Final Failure 14

Quote (Leon)

Atlus just died the other day. Twas a sad, sad day on Sankaku Complex.

Atlus never died, you idiot. You're worse than a loserface if you seriously thought that. They fused with Index in order for Index to have easier access to Atlus' IPs to which they already have access through a roundabout way. They just removed all obstructions.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/08/30/atlus...nagement-shift/

Square lost after it stopped making games like Chrono Trigger and FFVI.

The fall started with FFVIII.

Okay, so I was originally I wasn't going to post anything here. But with the way I've been hunting down and playing Final Fantasy games in recent months, I feel like I can't not say something. I think I'm just going to pull the opinion card and note that everyone likes different things. Regardless of that, though, I think that newer Final Fantasy games are getting an unjust amount of hate simply because people want to feel "in agreement" when they harp on things. So with that out of the way, here's a contrasting opinion for you all:

I'll be frank about this. I finished FFVI last week. It was fun, yes. I enjoyed it, yes. But I didn't think it was a high point in the series. The game loses all semblance of story after the world ends and degenerates into one big Kill Kefka party. I've heard people praise Kefka because all he wanted to do was rule and destroy and that's why he's better than Sephiroth or any other villain. Simplicity does not make a villain better, it just makes them boring. But again, that's just my opinion. Since I finished the game, every time I see cries of "make a game like FFVI," I just don't see what people are talking about. You're asking Square to make another game where the latter half is an optional series of fetch quests where the items being fetched are party members.

And even if that's what people really want and Square complies, they're still going to find something to complain about.

I won't go on to list how I feel about every game past VI, but I will say that I had a lot of fun with FFXII. And I'm sure millions of people can say the same thing. There was no "fall". If there was any of the sort, it was a one foot drop.

And since I feel like I should at least comment once on the topic's original purpose, I do think Final Fantasy as an MMO is a bad idea in theory but I never played FFXI.

But the quests to fetch the party back together are filled with character development. Terra has a crisis of spirit, Locke's reason for being a treasure hunter is laid bare, Cyan continues to battle his inner demons in a dream world, Setzer's heartbreak and love of airships as a conduit to memories, the Figaro brothers and their separate paths that now cross, Shadow's and Relm's past link, etc.

I can argue that FFVI had no main character, and that each character was unique and full. It is possible to miss all the great story elements if one isn't invested.

Sure, and that was fine. But I'd rather the game not drop the entire main story to go play character development. What happens during those quests could have been included into more story like how you learn more about Setzer while finding a new airship, which is necessary to the plot.

There wasn't a single "fetch quest" that I didn't enjoy (with the exception of Cyan's ordeal in Doma Castle, which was sort of annoying). I just think it could have been done a little better. The mere fact that you can access the final dungeon as soon as you get the second airship is like Square outright acknowledging that the rest of the game is optional. I mean, you can't really say Square couldn't have done a better job weaving character development into a main plot. I really didn't like how the entire Esper part of the plot disappeared halfway through and then got a brief mention in the ending sequence.

And I'm fine with there being no main character. All of the characters are indeed unique, but like I said, the way the game establishes that is by having no more required plot events after the world ends aside from Figaro Castle and procuring the second airship.

A lot of people would acknowledge that "the rest of the game is optional" as a success rather than a failure; same for the "weaving character development into the main plot" point. A major problem many reviewers have with FF games is the linear quality, so having optional content that can be accessed in any order you please eases that concern somewhat.

Concerning the topic at large, I have not played enough Final Fantasy to input, but I'm not the type to ever put a label of suck on any company for anything it does. To do so is to assume that knowledge of past events should guide your decision-making a lot more heavily than it probably should. Capcom's put out some great games with amazing online recently ((SSFIV)) and they've put out some garbage with terrible online recently ((Lost Planet 2)); that should serve as a good example of what I mean. I know Square Enix mostly does one type of thing, RPGs, so the comparison can't spread all the way, but ragging on them because their demo didn't work (this happens a lot from my experience) isn't warranted.

Just using this as a branching point for another discussion, I like to think that the age of linear RPGs is coming to an end. For me, there's just something so exciting about having a choice in the development of character relations and actual events that's got to be the cornerstone of new RPGs, which a lot of people aren't terribly happy about (people upset at the new Western RPG culture). Nowadays, though, when I play an RPG, Japanese or Western, and there's no choice as to how character relations go, it just feels like something's missing.

Oh, and I like Secret of Mana.

Chrono Trigger, FFVI, and Secret of Mana have the option to go straight to the finals about halfway in, but doing so looses a lot of good content.

If the rest of FFVI aside from the character development focused extras amounted to a full game, then that would be a success, yes. But as it is the game substitutes these extras in place of plot. Optional quests are nice, yes. The lack of those and a world map was what put me off of FFX at the beginning. But character development isn't something that should be mostly optional. When the game moves into the World of Ruin, plot and character development split apart into two specific camps divided by an electric fence. And the plot camp is populated by one laughing Kefka and nothing else.

Taking this from a different direction, what I see as being a "better" way is having some development both inside the linear plot and outside in extra quests. I know the game is newer, but to use Tales of Symphonia as an example, by the end of the game doing nothing but progressing the main story still allows you to feel like you understand the characters well. Beyond that, there are plenty of sidequests involving the characters that allow you to learn even more, things you'd never know otherwise.

The problem I have with FFVI is that it takes that baser character development and puts it all in optional sections that should have been at least party tied into the plot anyway. Terra's resolution in Mobliz, for example, is the kind of thing that should be part of the plot. It's not a "you found me so let's join up again" event like some characters. It's a major resolution that drives her to go after Kefka. It's this kind of thing that should be included in the plot, while less important bits of character development are interspersed throughout as the extras.

And I'll take a moment to acknowledge that this has nothing to do with the original topic (and I started the FFVI talk), but the original topic wasn't really inviting good discussion anyway.

I agree with you CC on the need for games to develop characters as part of the plot and not as a subquest.

Quote (Aim)

Concerning the topic at large, I have not played enough Final Fantasy to input, but I'm not the type to ever put a label of suck on any company for anything it does. To do so is to assume that knowledge of past events should guide your decision-making a lot more heavily than it probably should. Capcom's put out some great games with amazing online recently ((SSFIV)) and they've put out some garbage with terrible online recently ((Lost Planet 2)); that should serve as a good example of what I mean. I know Square Enix mostly does one type of thing, RPGs, so the comparison can't spread all the way, but ragging on them because their demo didn't work (this happens a lot from my experience) isn't warranted.

@Aimer: Seeing as Square and I have grown old together, more or less, and that they really haven't put out any good games in several years, leads me to believe they are terrible at making games anymore. Further, the lack of good customer support, and the lack of access to forums in a beta where you're testing for bugs that need to be reported in a forum, make me think they have the intelligence of a plastic soap dish. Scratch that, I don't want to insult soap dishes. Further it isn't a demo, that not working would be one thing. This is an open beta client, for a game that claims it will go live at the end of the month, with millions of worldwide consumers trying to access it all at once. Think of it as if StarCraft 2 only ran on half the consumers' computers, and you should get an idea of why this is unacceptable. Even some of the people who can get it to work complain of massive lag in UI, making it a horrid experience.

@That Dutch Loser: Sorry, they were absorbed into a nameless and faceless parent company (at least over here) so that they could use what they already owned. Unless they're still translating rpg's for the western market, they're dead to me. Mostly because I've never gotten into Persona.

@CC: Kefka is boss because he succeeded in his plan. He was a maniacal bastard who wanted to ruin the world for everyone, because he's just a douchebag of epic clownery proportions. He killed other bad guys because they weren't bad enough to hang with him. And he has possibly the most memorable soundfx for any character I can remember. Oh yeah and he's a clown. Clown are evil and scary by default.

As for the WoR, you can (and I have) beat the game with only Edgar, Celes, and Setzer. However, the game relies on you wanting to explore the new world, since you are playing an rpg which usually has heroes who explore the world and defeat evil, to advance the plot, which is as you said a series of fetch quests. For instance, once you hit the first town, they more or less TELL you where Sabin is. Same with several other characters. Granted, you could make a mad dash for Kefka and get your ass kicked because everything there has instant death and zombie and hard hitting spells, but you just skipped half the game because you didn't explore, which )was) a major point of RPG's at one point.

@TheUS: Learn to drive you fuckers. I'm tired of almost dieing every day because you piss ants can't get into a lane to get near the off ramp more than 10 feet before said off ramp and you end up cutting across 4 lanes of traffic.

Quote (Leon)

@TheUS: Learn to drive you fuckers. I'm tired of almost dieing every day because you piss ants can't get into a lane to get near the off ramp more than 10 feet before said off ramp and you end up cutting across 4 lanes of traffic.

What state? What city? Their are pockets of crazy all over the place.

Quote (Leon)

@TheUS: Learn to drive you fuckers. I'm tired of almost dieing every day because you piss ants can't get into a lane to get near the off ramp more than 10 feet before said off ramp and you end up cutting across 4 lanes of traffic.

As someone who recently really needed to vent, I can tell you that you need to chill out before you say something else that's mean. D:

Hey, Leon. Go vent elsewhere if you can't calm down. It's getting a little outa hand at this point. Go here if you can handle being an anon while venting

Darkstar: Hush.

PA: I was chill when I wrote that. I just like cursing at people who can't drive while making blanket generalizations about groups of people (who can't drive). Kind of like "white guys can't jump" and "black girls on my campus will shout 'HAAAYY GIRRRRLLL' loud enough to be heard across campus, even though they're 6 feet from each other".

Sadly that second one is a fact. I don't get it. :<

Azure: Seems to be at least all of the county I live in, and the counties surrounding it.